I exported a Quake MDL out of MS3D which looks ok-ish, still has vectrex swimming but it looks ok-ish..Same model gets exported as MD2, it looks VERY horrible, details are almost gone, and the animation is super ughly.

Also now i exported the same model out of 3dsmax with the MD2 exporter, and it isnt that bad like the MS3D MD2, butstill has more vectrex swimming than the MDL...

So i always thought MD2 was better and more improved unlike the old MDL, but it looks like i was wrong.Is MD2 really worser than MDL?

Both formats store vertices in the same way: byte coordinates, normal index, and scale and translate factors for the model.

Ideally a modeling program would maximize coordinate space with scale and translate based on maximum extent of all animation frames. If it's some fixed scale assumption instead, md2 might swim more because of larger monsters.

as qbism says, mdl and md2 both use byte positions with origin+scalethe difference between the two is that md2 has that origin+scale on a per-frame basis while mdl is per-model.this means that if your model moves/resizes then *EVERY SINGLE VERTEX* must move in order to stay aligned on the byte grid.

md3 is 16bit with 1/64th qu precision (iirc). if you move the verts at the extremity, nothing else needs to move. however, small movements (1/32th - 1/64th qu) will end up visibly snapped to the grid. maybe the user won't notice.

iqm has full 32bit float precision. being a skeletal format, it can be slower to render. frames are expressed as per-bone rotations or translations, as such, just moving verticies around randomly for each frame is a bad idea. you'll need to animate them properly, on a bone-by-bone basis. good luck fixing up problems after the fact. yes, you will need to be more careful with your rigging.

dpm as a format is pointless. its advantage is its obscurity, but that's basically it. use iqm. iirc, exporters for this format are somewhat compatible with halflife's smd stuff, so you may find it easier to export to if that's the you're already familiar with that (not a contradition: toolchains often make or break a format regardless of any technical merits of the format itself) .

Spike wrote:the difference between the two is that md2 has that origin+scale on a per-frame basis while mdl is per-model.this means that if your model moves/resizes then *EVERY SINGLE VERTEX* must move in order to stay aligned on the byte grid

Spike wrote:the difference between the two is that md2 has that origin+scale on a per-frame basis while mdl is per-model.this means that if your model moves/resizes then *EVERY SINGLE VERTEX* must move in order to stay aligned on the byte grid

Spike wrote:dpm as a format is pointless. its advantage is its obscurity, but that's basically it. use iqm. iirc, exporters for this format are somewhat compatible with halflife's smd stuff, so you may find it easier to export to if that's the you're already familiar with that (not a contradition: toolchains often make or break a format regardless of any technical merits of the format itself) .

I would hardly say its pointless. If you're using Darkplaces it is very useful, as it handles smd files very well, unlike the iqm tools. Like half life mdl files, it includes the ability to rotate and move the mesh around at compile time without changes in your 3D modelling suite. I spent days fighting with iqm, trying to get my meshes into that format, and eventually gave up. Dpm took an hour to get up and going with porting some of my Half Life and Half Life 2 content.

In short, if you like working with smd files as your export medium, steer clear of iqm.